Uniden PCW300 English Owners Manual - Page 21

Wireless PC Card Broadband - A data-transmission scheme in which multiple signals share the bandwidth of a single medium. This allows the transmission of voice, data, and video signals over that medium. Cable television uses broadband techniques to deliver dozens of channels over one cable. Browser - A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web or PC. The word "browser" seems to have originated prior to the Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse text files online. Cable Modem - A device that connects a computer to the cable television network, which in turn connects to the Internet. Once connected, cable modem users have a continuous connection to the Internet. Cable modems feature asymmetric transfer rates: around 36 Mbps downstream (from the Internet to the computer), and from 200 Kbps to 2 Mbps upstream (from the computer to the Internet). Data Packet - One frame in a packet-switched message. Most data communication is based on dividing the transmitted message into packets. For example, an Ethernet packet can be from 64 to 1518 bytes in length. Default Gateway - The routing device used to forward all traffic that is not addressed to a station within the local subnet. 39 Wireless PC Card DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) - A protocol that lets network administrators centrally manage and automate the assignment of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in an organization's network. Using the Internet's set of protocol (TCP/IP), each machine that can connect to the Internet needs a unique IP address. When an organization sets up its computer users with a connection to the Internet, an IP address must be assigned to each machine. Without DHCP, the IP address must be entered manually at each computer and, if computers move to another location in another part of the network, a new IP address must be entered. DHCP lets a network administrator supervise and distribute IP addresses from a central point and automatically sends a new IP address when a computer is plugged into a different place in the network. DHCP uses the concept of a "lease" or amount of time that a given IP address will be valid for a computer. The lease time can vary depending on how long a user is likely to require the Internet connection at a particular location. It's especially useful in education and other environments where users change frequently. Using very short leases, DHCP can dynamically reconfigure networks in which there are more computers than there are available IP addresses. DHCP supports static addresses for computers containing Web servers that need a permanent IP address. DNS - The Domain Name System (DNS) is the way that Internet domain names are located and translated into an Internet Protocol (IP) address. A domain name is a meaningful and easy-to-remember "handle" for an Internet address. 40